US Navy begins reviewing Seal Beach P3 submissions

The US Navy has begun reviewing submissions for a Seal Beach P3, P3 Bulletin reports, which moves that procurement past the point where teams respond and into the point where a sponsor sorts them. The headline gives no scope, no capital figure, no count of teams and no award timing, so what has changed is that an evaluation is under way rather than that anyone has been chosen.

The item sits in a headline list whose other entries spread across the pipeline. Contra Costa Transit Authority is exploring P3s for mobility hubs. Rio de Janeiro has opened a consultation for an electric bus P3. Advisors are being sought for a Canadian waterfront development and for a hospital P3 in Colombia, consultants are wanted for an investment roadmap in Flagstaff, and a contractor is already on board for a Peru healthcare P3. Jamaica is tendering an agricultural logistics hub. These are mandates, studies and tenders, work commissioned well before anyone prices a project.

Money appears three times in the list, and only one of those entries is a financing: the World Bank backing a Paraíba sanitation P3 with $50 million. A Florida city is weighing P3s for a $2.2 billion mobility program, and Harrison Street has agreed a $2.9 billion acquisition of an energy firm. A multilateral's $50 million commitment, a city's program size and a private buyer's corporate deal are three different things wearing the same dollar sign, and the smallest of them is the closest to the public P3 work the rest of the list describes.

The hiring is easier to find than the closings. A former Metrolinx chief is joining the Alto project, Equitix has appointed a capital formation lead, and Paslay Group plans an infrastructure expansion with an InfraStrategies co-founder. Advisers and sponsors are staffing the work; the transactions those hires are meant to chase remain, by this list, mostly at the front of the queue.

Two entries pull the other way. A Miami courthouse is on the brink following a termination notice, and P3 Bulletin is carrying an analysis by Lisa Best on a major project that politics, previous experience and community concerns have left on the back foot. Against a list of fresh mandates, those are the items that have gone sideways.

A preferred bidder at Seal Beach would give the federal pipeline a live competition to point at, and the headline gives no date for one. Until a name is attached, the busiest line of work in this list is the paperwork that precedes a deal rather than the deal.